Greetings all!

I'm back. Was a good trip. Went to Thailand and took a lot of pics. Brought some Joes and Cobra's with me, and my version of Cobra Commander on vacation. The Joes got some looks at customs when returning back to the US. And the mini tri-pod showed up in the x-ray machine. All in all it was interesting.

Wish I could share all the photos with everyone, but I did take a lot. Bought an external HD (500 gigs) there to offload the photos from the cameras. Finally got to ride in Bangkok in a "tuk tuk" in the rain. That was like riding a roller coaster without a safety belt. but I had a great time.

Up in the mountains it was nice in the shade, extremely hot/humid in the sun--I was drenched, and I'm from New Orleans where I am used to hot and humid! But anyway, lots of bugs, big ones--hornets, millipedes, lots of big red ants--snakes, wild boar, wooden bridges--some made nothing but logs. The scenery at times was very impressive, very Asian.

In Bangkok itself I did get a chance to visit other places I normally don't get to see. Now that Central World, Asia's second largest shopping mall was burned and is currently closed, other malls have an increase in customers now. There was one I rather liked, mostly because it had a nice bookstore. For those who don't know, a lot of the malls in Asia tend to go up, into multi-storied buildings. It's rather fun. But anyway, awesome bookstore with a computer section very up-to-date with even books on how to program my new Droid X. Lots of common American comics, books, etc, but a very nice section on Chinese and Japanese and other languages. I love books, so.. mmmm.. I wanna go back!

HSBC can be a pain. The main branch is located in Hong Kong and they like to say they are the world's local bank. Yet even to get a suppliment credit card a US passport is not good enough, nor is local Thai government docs. You need so much documents to prove you are you that I'm amazed they didn't demand my dental records and a pint of my blood. grrr

Food, excellent! Shopping, excellent! Except TRU in Esplanade. So bought some more gashappon (sp?) figures. You pay like $5 for a set of 3 tokens, put them into the machine and turn the knob. It's a gamble that you'll get anything you'll like.

Installed a hot water heater thing into the shower at the condo. In the US it's standard for a house or apartment to have a hot water heater, but not in Thailand. The place is hot most of the year that a cold shower is actually a cool shower. Only in winter do I feel the water too cold to really enjoy. So we got an electric one installed.

Not sure what else I can say about the trip. If anyone has questions about the country from an American perspective, please ask and I'll try to give some input. So now I'm back and I'm now planning my next trip there already. Probably it'll be around December again.

Anyway, I hope to organize some of these photos and post some more by the weekend.

--Death

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*~~~{==========- Death at Midnight -==========}~~~*